David Cameron today faced claims the government caved in to pressure from the drinks industry to ditch plans to impose minimum alcohol pricing.

Ministers met drinks firms, trade bodies and supermarkets dozens of times before dropping the policy last year.

Tory MP Sarah Wollaston said condemned the ‘shabby truth’ which had emerged while Labour accused the Prime Minister of ‘cosying up to vested interests’.

Downing Street had championed the idea of setting a minimum price at which alcohol could be sold, but it was dropped last year

The Home Office carried out a consultation on a 45p minimum unit price which would mean a can of strong lager could not be sold for less than £1.56 and a bottle of wine for less than £4.22.

But the Government shelved its plans to set a minimum per-unit price for alcohol last summer, even though it had been championed by Mr Cameron.

It sparked claims that he had been influenced by his party's election strategist, Australian lobbyist Lynton Crosby, whose firm is reported to have represented drinks giants.

An investigation by the British Medical Journal showed how ministers at the Department of Health, the Treasury and Home Office met with the alcohol industry numerous times while the policy was being consulted on.

It even included Chancellor George Osborne having a beer named after him by a group lobbying for minimum alcohol pricing to be dropped.

David Cameron has faced claims of caving into pressure from the drinks industry

The Department of Health held regular meetings with representatives from the drinks industry.

It included two meetings after the official public consultation on minimum pricing had ended.

A report by Sheffield University which found evidence that forcing the price of alcohol up would reduce crime and prevent deaths was also never released to the public.

Labour’s shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: ‘Once again, David Cameron has been found out cosying up to vested interests and standing up for the wrong people. It has become a hallmark of his Government.

‘Public health policy is in utter disarray. After the tobacco industry last year, these revelations raise yet more concerns about the influence of big business on this Government’s policies.

‘The Prime Minister once promised action on a minimum alcohol price but in government has been more interested in listening to lobbyists and vested interests than ordinary people.’

Dr Wollaston, a GP elected for the Conservatives in 2010, said it revealed ‘the shabby truth about the ditching of minimum pricing’ adding it is a ‘disgrace’ that the Sheffield University study was ‘supressed’.

A group of 22 health professionals including Sir Ian Gilmore, special adviser on alcohol at the Royal College of Physicians, accused the Government of ‘deplorable practices’.

They said: ‘Today, the public learns of the deplorable practices that were instrumental in the Government's decision to reverse its commitment to save thousands of lives by implementing a minimum unit price for alcohol.

‘An investigation conducted by the British Medical Journal shows that ministers met drinks industry representatives to discuss alternative measures to minimum pricing at a time when the principle of this policy was not up for public debate.

‘We call on the Government to stop dancing to the tune of the drinks industry and prioritise public health,’ they wrote in a letter to the Daily Telegraph.

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Public health minister Jane Ellison said government had to ‘weigh lots of things in the balance’.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: ‘I know that many public health experts feel very strongly about this policy but we also had to weigh up the impact it would have on low income households, the impact it would have on people drinking responsibly.

‘Wider government has to take these things into consideration. On the health issue this idea of the 130 meetings, many of the public health experts were in those meetings.’

She added: ‘We are not proceeding at the moment, that was the conclusion of the consultation, that was what the Government said.’

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Minimum unit pricing is still under consideration.

‘As you would expect from a government department seeking to effect public health change through a voluntary deal with industry, a wide group of officials have many different meetings with a vast range of stakeholders, and we utterly reject the allegation of anything untoward in the small proportion of those that took place with the alcohol industry.’

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Anger at 'shabby truth' of meetings between ministers and drinks industry in weeks before minimum alcohol pricing was axed